Four of Monk’s guys guarded the door, and they all were surprised to see the Sinatras with the boss. Did that mean the war was over? Was Frankie going to let them get away with killing sixty-five of their men? Who was his true allegiance to, they wondered not for the first time, as Monk and the Sinatras went inside and closed the door.
Four men were seated in a row in the middle of the room. All four had their hands tied behind their backs and then their wrists were hooked onto the back of the chairs with handcuffs. Their legs were also held down with ankle restraints. Two more of Monk’s men were also inside of the house. It was obvious to Mick that they had been playing cards at the table before they hopped up when his SUV arrived.
It was also obvious to all of the Sinatras that all four men had been badly tortured. They all were bleeding from the sides of their heads. They all were bruised everywhere else.
“What we got so far?” Monk asked his men.
“Nothing,” said his lead capo. “They ain’t talking. No matter what we did, they won’t say. And we tried everything.”
Monk and the Sinatras stood in front of the men. Nikki stood near the back of the room with her gun drawn: just in case.
“What’s your name?” Monk asked them.
The men said nothing.
“You know my name?” Monk asked them.
One of them, number three, looked at Monk. He knew him, but he still held his peace.
“You will talk,” Monk said. “Eventually, you will talk. You will endure more torture, if that’s what you prefer, but at the end of the day you will talk. Why not save yourself the pain?”
Still nothing.
“Do your asses speak English?” Teddy asked. They all looked Eastern European to him.
Number three looked at Teddy the same way he looked at Monk. And his face made clear they understood every word. That wasn’t the issue.
“Then what’s your problem?” an irritated Monk asked him. “You think we’re gonna stand up here after you kidnapped Duke Sinatra,Mick Sinatra’s son, and allow you to get away with that? You think you got it going on like that? You think we’re gonna let this shit stand?”
Still no response.
“You hear me, motherfucker!” Monk yelled at number three as he punched him so hard that his head rolled from one side of his shoulders and then to the other side as if it was barely able to sit up on his neck.
“We can do this the easy way,” Monk said, “or we can do this the hard way. But it will be done! Now which is it gonna be?”
Prisoner number three looked at Monk after that punch with a look so filled with rage that he spit at Monk with the blood that was already in his blood-filled mouth.
As soon as that spit occurred, and before Monk could react, Mick stepped forward with a Glock nobody realized was in his hand and he shot, straight through the forehead, numberone, number two, and prisoner number four. Then he looked at prisoner number three with his gun still locked and loaded: “You can talk,” he said, “or you can join them. Pick your poison.”
Monk and Teddy were shocked that Mick would do away with three of the men that could help them get answers. And to keep the very one that was most defiant baffled them.
But Mick knew what he was doing. That defiance was fear. The other three were never going to talk. Number three had a breaking point.
Number three was stunned that Mick had escalated it to that degree already. He was behaving as if he still had cards up his sleeve. As if he was going to wait it out until some rescue that probably was never going to come. And perhaps with Teddy and Monk he did have cards, and he could have waited it out. But not with Mick. He had underestimated his opponent.
That was why, when he didn’t immediately respond, Mick didn’t hesitate to lift his Glock to the forehead of number three, and put his finger on that trigger. It was also no surprise to Mick that number three became most compliant. “What do you want to know?!” he screamed out.
Teddy and Monk looked at each other. How did Mick do that shit?
But Mick was concerned because prisoner number three spoke with a definite Russian accent.And he cut to the chase. “Who do you work for?” he asked him.
Number three’s dark eyes made clear that he didn’t want to name the boss, as if that was the one thing they were never supposed to do, but he knew if Mick the Tick saw any hesitation on his part that would be his undoing anyway. “Datvey,” he said.
Mick had heard that name before.
“Datvey?” asked Monk.
“Datvey Gagarin,” said number three.
